It seems a little off to call such a cold blooded story "fun", but that's exactly what Charley Varrick is. It's a neat little crime caper, a look at the cultural zeitgeist of the early 1970s and features Walter Matthau as one of the most ruthless bastards in cinematic history.
The simple but still interesting and effective plot starts with a bank robbery in a small New Mexico town. Charley Varrick (Walter Matthau) is a middle-aged pilot who's gone from flying in air shows to being a crop duster. When bigger companies start to push him out of the business, he decides to start robbing banks. Yeah, that seems like an odd decision but the movie makes it subtly clear that Varrick has more than a bit of experience with the criminal world in his past. Though they get away with the bank's money, two-thirds of Varrick's gang ends up dead and Charley's worried the same thing will happen to the rest of them after they discover the small town bank held over 750 thousand dollars. As Charley explains to Harman (Andrew Robinson), the young and reckless surviving member of the gang, the only way a tiny bank in a backwater town could have that much money on hand is if it were mob money being hidden from the authorities.
Charley's right about that. Bank president Maynard Boyle (John Vernon) and branch manager Harold Young (Woodrow Parfrey) have been laundering money for the Mafia. Boyle and Young aren't just concerned about the robbery. They're also worried that their mob friends will blame them for the theft, La Cosa Nostra being notorious for its suspicion of coincidence. The explanation that a crew of professional bank robbers just happened to hit a nothing little bank in a nothing little town on the exact day it was holding a stash of Mafia money isn't likely to satisfy them. So Boyle dispatches a pipe-smoking cowboy of a hit-man named Molly (Joe Don Baker) to track down the robbers, though Molly's also instructed to find out if Boyle and Young were behind the theft.
Charley seems to know it's just a matter of time before the cops or the mob run him down. The only question is what will he have to do to get away?
Let me acknowledge that Charley Varrick shares two things with a lot of other films from the 1970s. Visually, it looks a lot like a TV movie by today's standards and it has a more leisurely pace than most modern crime stories. While it's actually more realistic for things to unfold the way they do here, folks used to the rat-tat-tat-tat speed of current films may find Charley Varrick a bit slow. If those things don't bother you, though, this is a very nice piece of work.
There's a beguiling moral vacuousness to this film. The title character is a truly evil person, even worse in some ways than the mob guys out to kill him. Yet, the story treats his unflinching heartlessness as though it were merely a natural and proper reflection of the world in which Varrick lives. The slogan of Varrick's crop dusting company is "The Last of the Independents" and the film uses that as something of a rallying cry. It treats him as the symbol of the ordinary guy being squeezed by larger forces in society, whether it's the law, the mob or big business. That Varrick has the brains and boldness to take those larger forces is portrayed as admirable, even though the actions he takes to do so are undeniably horrible.
The movie also reflects the 70s conceit that crime and the underworld are never more than an inch under the surface anywhere in America. That a bank president would be in bed with the Mafia is treated as the most unsurprising thing in the world. The existence of men like Molly, who cruise through the world like sharks, is considered a normal and expected aspect of life.
The acting in this film is quite good. Joe Don Baker plays Molly as a man who lives by very strict rules but relishes inflicting pain and death within those guidelines. Andrew Robinson plays Harman as a boy in a man's world, incapable for seeing beyond his immediate wants and impulses. William Schallert as the sheriff investigating the bank robbery manages to make him a genuinely good man but not one who's naïve to the bad world in which his lives. Walter Matthau also gives a great demonstration of "movie star charisma". Charley Varrick is not a colorful or larger-than-life guy. He's plain spoken and his only affectation is chewing gum. But Matthau manages to hold your attention every second he's on the screen, to the point you can't help but empathize with this vicious and unredeemed man.
Charley Varrick is from another cultural and filmmaking era. If you've had little experience with that era, this movie might be a bit of an acquired taste. Give it a chance, though, and you'll find watching this film to be very rewarding.
The simple but still interesting and effective plot starts with a bank robbery in a small New Mexico town. Charley Varrick (Walter Matthau) is a middle-aged pilot who's gone from flying in air shows to being a crop duster. When bigger companies start to push him out of the business, he decides to start robbing banks. Yeah, that seems like an odd decision but the movie makes it subtly clear that Varrick has more than a bit of experience with the criminal world in his past. Though they get away with the bank's money, two-thirds of Varrick's gang ends up dead and Charley's worried the same thing will happen to the rest of them after they discover the small town bank held over 750 thousand dollars. As Charley explains to Harman (Andrew Robinson), the young and reckless surviving member of the gang, the only way a tiny bank in a backwater town could have that much money on hand is if it were mob money being hidden from the authorities.
Charley's right about that. Bank president Maynard Boyle (John Vernon) and branch manager Harold Young (Woodrow Parfrey) have been laundering money for the Mafia. Boyle and Young aren't just concerned about the robbery. They're also worried that their mob friends will blame them for the theft, La Cosa Nostra being notorious for its suspicion of coincidence. The explanation that a crew of professional bank robbers just happened to hit a nothing little bank in a nothing little town on the exact day it was holding a stash of Mafia money isn't likely to satisfy them. So Boyle dispatches a pipe-smoking cowboy of a hit-man named Molly (Joe Don Baker) to track down the robbers, though Molly's also instructed to find out if Boyle and Young were behind the theft.
Charley seems to know it's just a matter of time before the cops or the mob run him down. The only question is what will he have to do to get away?
Let me acknowledge that Charley Varrick shares two things with a lot of other films from the 1970s. Visually, it looks a lot like a TV movie by today's standards and it has a more leisurely pace than most modern crime stories. While it's actually more realistic for things to unfold the way they do here, folks used to the rat-tat-tat-tat speed of current films may find Charley Varrick a bit slow. If those things don't bother you, though, this is a very nice piece of work.
There's a beguiling moral vacuousness to this film. The title character is a truly evil person, even worse in some ways than the mob guys out to kill him. Yet, the story treats his unflinching heartlessness as though it were merely a natural and proper reflection of the world in which Varrick lives. The slogan of Varrick's crop dusting company is "The Last of the Independents" and the film uses that as something of a rallying cry. It treats him as the symbol of the ordinary guy being squeezed by larger forces in society, whether it's the law, the mob or big business. That Varrick has the brains and boldness to take those larger forces is portrayed as admirable, even though the actions he takes to do so are undeniably horrible.
The movie also reflects the 70s conceit that crime and the underworld are never more than an inch under the surface anywhere in America. That a bank president would be in bed with the Mafia is treated as the most unsurprising thing in the world. The existence of men like Molly, who cruise through the world like sharks, is considered a normal and expected aspect of life.
The acting in this film is quite good. Joe Don Baker plays Molly as a man who lives by very strict rules but relishes inflicting pain and death within those guidelines. Andrew Robinson plays Harman as a boy in a man's world, incapable for seeing beyond his immediate wants and impulses. William Schallert as the sheriff investigating the bank robbery manages to make him a genuinely good man but not one who's naïve to the bad world in which his lives. Walter Matthau also gives a great demonstration of "movie star charisma". Charley Varrick is not a colorful or larger-than-life guy. He's plain spoken and his only affectation is chewing gum. But Matthau manages to hold your attention every second he's on the screen, to the point you can't help but empathize with this vicious and unredeemed man.
Charley Varrick is from another cultural and filmmaking era. If you've had little experience with that era, this movie might be a bit of an acquired taste. Give it a chance, though, and you'll find watching this film to be very rewarding.